ship firmly grounded, Maurice had pulled out their finest Royal Doulton. It was the steward's subtle way of getting back at him for his earlier crack. If Juan recalled properly, the cup in his hand had cost seventy-five dollars.
How did Mike and his team make out? he asked. Murph and Stoney were in their customary seats toward the front of the room.
They got back at about four this morning, Eric Stone replied. He left word that it went well, but they need at least one more night. But there's a problem.
Isn't there always?
The workboat with the sonar gear went south this morning.
Juan cursed. If he could find the wreck in a submersible so quickly, it was a safe assumption that the Chinese would, too. I bet the other bay is iced over, so they're checking on the right one.
What do you want to do about it? Mark asked.
Not sure, Juan replied. We can't catch them in either of the submersibles, and if we go after them in an RHIB they might radio back to base about an unknown craft approaching them.
Hali Kasim was sitting at his customary station. He offered, So what if they find it today? All they'll be able to do is take some grainy underwater pictures. It proves nothing, and by this time tomorrow the wreck will be destroyed.
Playing devil's advocate, Eric said, if they find the wreck, who's to say they don't stay overnight? That'll mess up our schedule.
Juan felt the beginnings of a headache and rubbed his temples absently. Of course there was the other problem that he had no idea how to tackle. He'd already run his idea by Kevin Nixon, but the special-effects master said any fakes he made would be spotted in a second. It was the real deal or nothing. For their plan to work so the Argentines never suspected a thing, Cabrillo needed to find eighteen human skeletons.
The headache was morphing into a migraine.
The Silent Sea
Chapter TWENTY-SIX
WHO DO YOU LOVE MORE THAN ME? LINDA ROSS ASKED when she strode into the op center fifteen quiet minutes later. She carried a slim manila folder and a wide grin.
Megan Fox, Mark said at once.
Beyonc+!, the duty tech at damage control called out.
Katie Holmes, Hali said.
I've always had a thing for Julia Roberts, Eric added.
Chairman, Linda asked, care to be a sexist pig, too?
The only woman I love more than you is my mom.
The other men jeered him softly.
Linda smiled. Touch+!.
Remind me again why I love you so.
Because I've found that less than a hundred miles south of here is a Norwegian whaling station abandoned back in the 1930s.
We don't need whale bones.
It has been preserved as a World Heritage Site wait for it because it has a chapel with a graveyard that is the final resting place for twenty-seven whalers who'd died in these waters. You told me to find you some bones, I give you bones.
Juan was on his feet in an instant and at her side in two strides. He had to bend way over to lay a kiss on her velvety cheek. The migraine suddenly vanished, and the pall that had formed over him lifted. What had him so down was the fact that if they hadn't found a bunch of skeletons, he would have had no choice but to leave the hostages to their fate. He doubted they were going to be an Argentine priority once things heated up, so to leave them behind meant to let them die.
Chairman, I'm picking up a transmission from the Chinese workboat, Hali said, turning back to his bank of computers.
Jam it!
He worked his keyboard for a second. I've isolated the frequency. They're dead. The computer will automatically keep following them as they search for a signal up and down the dial.
Okay. Good. If they have any news to report, they'll have to go back to base. That's two problems down in under a minute. Well done, everybody.
Max and Tamara strolled into the op center, their hands so close together that Juan suspected they'd been holding them just seconds earlier. The bullfrog and the princess, he thought, but was happy for them both.
Perfect timing, my friend.
Hanley looked at him like a buyer eyes a used-car salesman. I've got a bad feeling about this.
Cabrillo smiled broadly. And so you should. I need you to play Igor and go rob a churchyard.
Tamara looked aghast. You want him to do what?
You know, Max said, shaking his head from side to side. I have to admit there was a part of me that hoped this piece of the operation wouldn't pan out.
Come on, Juan teased, fresh air, open skies, decomposing Norwegians. It'll be great!
What are you two talking about? Decomposing who?
Max turned to her. In order for us to rescue the hostages so the Argentines don't know they're missing, we have to leave something behind to fool them.
But?
Once we get them out of the building, Juan said, we'll torch it. All they'll find are eighteen sets of charred bones. Only a pathologist would know they weren't the original men and women. We're just grateful the sizes of the winter-over crews are so small, otherwise we'd need to come up with an alternative.
Like what? Her mind reeled.
A small nuke, maybe.
From what she'd seen of the Corporation so far, she wasn't sure if Cabrillo was joking or not. She wouldn't be surprised if it were the latter.
He threw her a wolfish grin that told her nothing beyond the fact that she was surrounded by a bunch of swashbuckling adolescents. She looked to Max for guidance. He merely shrugged. She said, I guess it's a good thing you were going to use a small one.
Linda moved to her side, as if she were an anchor in their craziness, and said, Don't worry. We do know what we're doing.
I'm glad you do because I sure don't.
Hanley left twenty minutes later in an RHIB, towing an inflatable boat. He and his four-man crew shot straight out to sea for about five miles before turning southward, so there was no chance of being spotted from shore. Max brought along a gasoline-powered high-pressure pump he planned to use to excavate the bones. The needle of heated water it threw could be dialed up to four thousand psi, more than enough to melt away the permafrost covering the bodies. As he said when they left, No picks and shovels for Mrs. Hanley's favorite son.
Juan had a decidedly more difficult job today. With the Chinese surveying the bay where the wreck was located, Mike Trono and his team couldn't resume their work. That freed up the Nomad submersible, with its air lock. The perpetually twilit sky was dark enough to provide visual cover, and the Argentines' oil rigs and hot-air bubbling system would screen the sounds of his work.
Down in the underwater operations room, Cabrillo dressed to dive. Under his Viking dry suit he wore a mesh garment embedded with more than a hundred feet of tubing. Warm water would be circulated through the tubes from an umbilical attached to a jack on the submarine. He knew the Argentines were heating the bay, but he couldn't risk encountering freezing water during his trip. The umbilical also carried his communications system and his air, so there was no need for bulky tanks.
The full-face helmet was equipped with powerful lights, which he dimmed down by covering half the lenses with paint. It would make it much more difficult to work but also much harder to be spotted from the surface. He
